Human Relations
Intrapreneurship
S
ometimes when the sense and feeling of moving
from stable employment is overwhelmingly strong,
the thought of lack of a steady income, and possible
failure deflate you like a balloon and you resign
yourself to stick to the job.
It’s not always that the desire to leave the job is driven by a bad
work environment, or the scary thought of having to live on a
pension and your lifestyle falls short of your dreams. Sometimes,
it is the deeply set creative juices seeking release and not having
the proper channels in the currently held position. It is this
element that we analyze today and see how we can capitalize
on it to grow a career and even possibly prepare one to change
jobs or get enough courage to start their own enterprise or
discover hidden talents and abilities.
Not to be confused with entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship is
the practice of building a business or product or service within
an already established organization. In entrepreneurship, one
does the same but there is no established organization to take
on the risks or provide the capital or cushion any failure.
Intrapreneurship can only be successful within organisations
whose culture encourages, embraces and celebrates staff
driven innovation and continuous improvement activities.
Intrapreneurs are risk takers (as long as the environment assures
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Esteemed Magazine July -August 2015
them of a safety net incase they fall) and innovators with an
element of creativity and proactive decision making.
I would dare say that organizations which embrace intrapreneurs
within their structure, have increased chances of increased
profits and diversified products/ portfolios which ultimately
causes them to outlive and outdo competition.
So what characterizes an intrapreneur?
Understanding the organization and its mission
A successful intrapreneur has a deep understanding of the
organization, its mission and its strategy. In order to enhance or
generally change anything, one needs to understand what they
are dealing with. You need to understand what mission and
strategy is pursued by the company so that you can either make
changes or giving it a great competitive advantage in its current
strategy and activity. One company in India started as a small
vegetable company. Intrapreneurship allowed it to evolve and
transform into a software outsourcing company which employs
more than 150,000 people with a market capitalisation of about
$35 billion. This is an example of intrapreneurship changing
the strategy and mission of the organisation. Zappos, have
Mr. Tony Hsieh as its intrapreneur and it was expanded from a
simple footwear seller to an online shoe company. Currently the
company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com